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Unfortunately, I would imagine that is the case...liver cancer is terminal and usually pretty swift...margaritas at El Sarapes wouldn't change that.

In a healthy person though, the liver is able to regenerate to a certain extent if allowed to.

Alcoholics just never give the liver the chance to heal up. The liver becomes scarred, scar tissue shrinks, the major arteries in the body that run through the liver become squeezed and you end up with hemmoroids in the rectum and in the throat (called varices) from the pressure in the vessels building up because it can't get through the liver. Varices are ticking bombs. They can easily rupture and that's all folks.

Had a friend who's mother died from them. Horrible.

Liver values start showing abnormalities when damage has occured. I once worked for a doctor and he had me call this guy and tell him his lab values showed early cirrosis...had to tell him to quit drinking. The guy was just silent for a while then said "Whattaya mean, quit drinking?" I said "Your lab values show that your alcohol intake is beginning to destroy your liver and you can't live without your liver, you need to quit drinking."

He just verbally bawled me out...who the h*** was I to tell him to quit drinking!!!??? I told him "Sir, I'm not telling you to quit drinking, your liver is."

He hung up on me...never heard what happened to the fella.

I imagine the guy kept drinking! Along the same lines as the guys with emphysema that try to figure out how to smoke around their oxygen tanks without blowing themselves up. Peoples is peoples, and most peoples is funny.

And just to be clear.... Chris wasn't alcoholic, just a college kid (fine line that might be at times ;~D)

BTW.... nice imagery with the rectal varices... ;~D

Of the many things my dad went through after his burn, drinking was one of the things he had to give up. He wasn't even a heavy drinker, he just liked his beer. This was before he had been diagnosed with Hepatitis C (the docs called it non-A/non-B). They told him he had hemachromatosis. Either way he would have had to give up his beer.

He ended up substituting O'Douls. It wasn't as yummy as the real thing, but it did the trick for him.